As OTT (Over-The-Top) technology has gotten more mature and established robust standards over the years, the concept of OTT monitoring is gaining popularity. With customer expectations soaring, it’s vital for OTT providers to deliver superior quality content. To deliver Quality of Experience (QoE) on par with linear TV broadcast, the entire system, starting from ingest to multi-bitrate encoding to delivery to CDN must be monitored continuously.

Monitoring SDI video content within an installation is and has always been straight forwards. If you have a monitor, and you can see the image correctly, all is well. This is not necessarily the case for metadata and especially not for audio.

Real-time content monitoring is a mission-critical operation for broadcasters, telecom, and satellite operators. Traditionally, service providers have used monitoring systems based on specialized hardware with a dedicated, fixed interface designed to monitor a specific number of video feeds. Yet, bespoke hardware solutions require a substantial amount of manpower, have a higher cost of ownership than software, and are inflexible.

It's actually a more difficult question than you think. When I ask the majority of engineers this question, I will get a technical answer. It will be something like "to be sure we meet the specification" or "to be sure we don't put bad signals on air" or "so that I don't get fired for getting loudness wrong"

The purpose of color correction is to fix any problems with exposure and color, ensuring the final image looks right. Color grading is used to set the mood by adjusting the colors of the video imagery to achieve a certain look or feel.

Audio monitoring has come a long way since its humble beginnings of a box with a speaker, a volume control and an analogue input. Today's high-end audio monitoring units boast an impressive array of I/O such as SDI, MADI, AES-3 and Analogue while offering a large amount of functionality such as accurate metering, loudness measurement, Dolby decoding, metadata analysis and video confidence monitoring. There is however a huge storm brewing in the world of broadcast in the form of video and audio over IP, which will turn everything upside down.

There are basically two different approaches to capturing the Eye Diagram from an SDI signal. These are real-time capture (employed by Real Time oscilloscopes) and signal subsampling (employed by Sampling oscilloscopes such as the Omnitek Ultra 4k Tool Box). All broadcast T&M equipment will use one of these approaches to create the Eye Diagram using a variety of proprietary techniques.

The world of broadcast audio is on the verge of a major revolution. Numerous 3D Immersive formats are under development and will find their way into the mainstream of broadcast production and distribution in the near future. Unlike the world of relatively constrained channel based coding as we are accustomed to (most commonly Left / Right for Stereo and Left / Centre / Right / Surround Left / Surround Right + LFE or Low Frequency Effects for surround), these new codecs will support more channels and/or object based audio coding. For the end consumer, there will be two major benefits from this new approach, a greater sense of involvement or immersion, and a degree of personalisation.

A man is rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack. The priorities of the medical team that treats him are clear: keep the patient alive, contain the damage to the heart as far as possible, stabilise the situation until the patient is out of danger. They work under the pressure of these immediate priorities, and with little or no information about the patients medical history to date.

In the past, audio processing and monitoring required the purchasing of multiple, specialized hardware to support each function in the air chain. But now, thanks to the increase in the speed of Ethernet connectivity, and IT-based processing power, many of these same processes can be condensed and supported over IP. Audio in particular is making a move to the IP realm with the recent AES67 standard bringing interoperability between manufacturers. Even with this standardization, Audio over IP (AoIP) is still not being used to its maximum potential in the broadcast space.

There is so much choice available today for prompting devices. From phones and tablets to full Broadcast Studios systems and with non-word prompting techniques like Interrotrons becoming popular choosing the best prompting system for your productions needs some serious consideration.

Image quality is a central concern for users of any video product, so monitoring should be one of the foremost considerations for cinematographers and videographers. Along similar lines, the ability of consumer televisions and a range of personal devices to display increasingly better imagery has led to higher expectations of quality.

The technology supporting the media industry is evolving at a furious pace, making system flexibility a critical characteristic of any new equipment or infrastructure investment. Broadcasters and other media companies must adapt quickly if they are to benefit from changing content creation, management, and delivery models, but they can't afford to purchase solutions that meet only immediate requirements, and not necessarily those of the future.

Without microphones, in-ear monitors (IEMs), intercom and distribution systems based on wireless technology, many of today's large-scale television studios, outside broadcast and film productions would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stage. Wireless solutions provide convenience and, in the main, great performance, however as with many technologies careful investment will provide the best results.

Understanding what video scopes tell us about our images is essential to creating great looking images; regardless of which video editing software you are using. In this article, I want to explain the basics of video scopes and how to read them.

With 2015 now upon us what better way to start by being in the know with all the latest gear for video editing? We all know the editing process can be a stressful one, so having the right equipment and being organised will help you to become more productive this year.

There has been a trend in recent times towards using large screen systems in production galleries and monitor walls. This has been enabled by the wide-scale availability of affordable multi-viewer systems but has this trend really been of benefit to broadcasters?

Monitoring equipment is often the last element considered in a broadcast system build, and getting its deployment just right is not always a top priority. However, most operations managers and broadcast engineers readily acknowledge the critical role that effective monitoring plays in making their jobs easier. This is especially true today, with broadcast networks growing ever more complex and relying on technologies that were not originally intended for the broadcast environment.

The Phonak Invisity wireless in ear monitor receiver has been a fi rm favourite of presenters and actors alike for some time, however you could be forgiven if you’ve not noticed them, they are, after all, very small indeed!

Wireless microphone systems for cameras are used by ENG crews and reporting teams as well as for TV and film shootings, where compact size, low weight and unobtrusive miking are particularly important.

Camera and monitor batteries - what's not to like? They're portable, rechargeable and easy to use. Well, actually, there are some drawbacks. Batteries can be heavy, expensive to replace and difficult and costly to travel with, as airline passengers know all too well.

Multiple-award-winning film producer and cinematographer Matt Siegel chose a Leader LV5381 four-input multi-SDI monitor for use during his recent seminar on Digital Cinematography at The Maine Media Workshops.

Hampshire based filming specialist Flying Pictures is the world leader in the provision of aerial and helicopter filming services for feature films, commercials, television, live broadcast events and surveillance.

The original concept for the Enhanced Prompting Information Centre, an all-in-one prompter and talent monitor came about through the combination of customer requirement and our desire to offer a better talent monitor solution than the one we had introduced around eight years ago, to enable presenters to see the programme feed.

Delivering a high quality of service (QoS) is critical in the broadcast world, as it greatly impacts viewer satisfaction and a broadcasters revenue streams. However, the television environment is becoming increasingly more complex, as stations transition to digital and add next-generation OTT or hybrid TV services that require maintaining compliance with industry standards.

OmniTeks latest waveform analysis software focussed on assessing the degradation in video and audio quality and timing suffered by images as they are transmitted or stored. What approach has OmniTek taken to measuring these effects?

The task of maintaining loudness-compliant, high-quality delivery for broadcast audio is no longer a question of simply using ones ears. Audio channels produced for todays fast-paced productions come in embedded SDI workflow with streaming signals containing a mix of mono, stereo, surround, Dolby encoded and descriptive audio, as well as alternative mixes and multiple language tracks. Maintaining a quality audio track using this disparate mix of audio elements is one part of the QA equation facing broadcasters.

One of the many demands broadcasters face today is establishing effective multiformat signal management and confidence monitoring, which have become critically required capabilities, and there are several reasons behind this.

With the announcement of Blackmagic Cinema Camera at NAB 2012, Mark Linnhoff, a France based cinematographer, began to see the future of filmmaking in a new light. Finally, an affordable acquisition tool that doesnt compromise on image quality, he recalled.

The end of last year saw Teradek step up the game even more in the HD wireless monitoring world, with its announcement of The Bolt, a wireless HD-SDI monitoring system. The first thing that struck many on its launch was the size of both the transmitter and the receiver.

With respect to monitoring, particularly for multiplatform content delivery, how can our facility straddle the divide between baseband and file-based signals? The media industry as a whole is moving toward multiplatform content delivery.

I wonder sometimes whether a successful OB should be measured as Outside Broadcast Coverage per KG or OB coverage per KM. The cost of fuel keeps rising and so the cost of getting to an OB location is also increasing. To anyone who is a cyclist, you know that extra weight slows you down when climbing hills.

As consumer demand for video content anywhere, anytime, and on any connected device continues to grow at a rapid pace, today’s pay-TV operators are in need of next-generation technologies that will lower the cost of multiscreen content delivery while enabling them to adapt to new business models.

Why do I need monitors? And why can't I just use my Hifi speakers?
What does a good studio monitor do?
So I just spend a load of money on speakers, stick them in my room and I'm Abbey Road, right?
So how do I set my monitors up correctly?!
So how does a speaker counteract these acoustic problems you've been talking about, in terms of design?

The very first analytical electronic instrument, developed in the late 1890s, was the oscilloscope. This used a cathode ray tube (CRT) to paint a graph of voltage on the Y axis versus time on the X axis. Once television became a practical reality in the 1930s, the same instrument was applied to the video output from the camera and became the very useful waveform monitor.

I have always liked multitools, leatherman, Gerber, Swiss Army. Amazing little all in one tools that can get you out a hole when you need.
Its the same when out setting up a Live webcast, a multi camera event or simply assisting another crew, I always like to have a few useful boxes of tricks with me just in case.

The great majority of video monitoring displays in any modern broadcast presentation facility are LED-backlit LCDs. Reliable, space-efficient and economical on power, they produce excellent pictures for all but the most critical applications, usually in conjunction with one or more multiviewers to emulate a monitor stack.

One of the major challenges facing broadcasters and content producers today is quality control. In the traditional model QC was performed by skilled viewers in real time, watching the content on a good monitor alongside a waveform monitor and audio meters to ensure the technical parameters were optimised.

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